[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by The Goat

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me lose faith in our citizenry and the collective future. We had a President who oversaw roughly $3 TRILLION IN NEW NATIONAL DEBT BECAUSE HE SLASHED TAXES AND DRASTICALLY INCREASED SPENDING (NOT ON THE PUBLIC BUT SOLELY ON THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX) AND YET PEOPLE SOMEHOW WANT TO HOLD ONTO A FANTASY OF FISCAL CONSERVATISM.

I mean that's just nonsense. Why waste time w/ insipid, stupid fantasies that contradict the historical record? I'm not even creative but I can think of more exciting fairytales on a whim!

It's easy to read charts and graphs without putting things into historical context. It's also easy to type in all caps, SEE I CAN DO IT TOO. Not putting things into context is what is "nonsense", and an "insipid, stupid" idea.

You should read this:
Ronald Reagan: The Heritage Foundation Remembers

"Though Reagan promised deep cuts in domestic spending, that did not turn out to be the case. Indeed, overall welfare spending increased during the Reagan presidency -- primarily because Reagan could not overcome, even with vetoes and the bully pulpit of the White House, the spending impulses of Congress, which, after all, signed the checks. Throughout his two terms, he was confronted by Democrats still enthralled by the New Deal as well as Republicans (particularly in the Senate) still mesmerized by its political appeal."

"But it is a little-remembered fact, as Cato Institute economist Stephen Moore has emphasized, that by the end of the Reagan era, the federal deficit as a share of gross domestic product was falling, and rapidly -- from 6 percent in 1985 to 3 percent in 1989. As Reagan left office, the Democrat-controlled Congressional Budget Office projected that "deficits were on a path to fall to about one percent of GDP by 1993," without any action by future presidents.[xxiii]"

And he was working with a Dem controlled congress for his first 4 years and a Dem controlled House in his last four. A majority of his increase in the debt was due to defense spending and the USSR at the time was a lot more than a "fairy tale" threat.